Parents and educators may frown at the messy choices made here, but budding artists and those who have ever felt...
A pointed finger sends a boy to a “time out” and into a colorful world he creates with crayons and his overactive imagination.
Reidy lets the text come from the punished protagonist: “There’s a corner in my house that needs some fixing up… / Mom says it’s fine, but I know better. I spend a lot of time there.” The boy begins drawing and daydreaming in an infectious, rambling way. Each good idea leads to a bigger, better and more elaborate one. Neubecker increasingly fills the spreads with brightly colored, boldly outlined pictures inspired by the rapid-fire narration. A window leads to flowers, and then additions of dinosaurs, a monster, a monster truck, a truck loaded with ice cream and on and on, until his vivid thoughts completely fill a double gatefold. But readers soon discover that his thoughts are real drawings that make up an elaborate mural over the walls near his corner, which he must now clean up. Readers will relate to the main character’s boredom and spunky reaction. Like Max with his Wild Things, this boy takes control in his own age-appropriate way.
Parents and educators may frown at the messy choices made here, but budding artists and those who have ever felt misunderstood will cheer on this “time out” king. Purple footprints leading off the final page point to further creative pursuits. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: July 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4231-3127-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
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A sweet sisterhood seaside story.
Little Jules is determined to impress her big sister with an amazing sand castle…
…but the Ocean has other plans! Sima’s story hinges on Jules’ adoration of her big sister (unnamed and with slightly darker brown skin than Jules’ and their mom’s). When Mom brings them to the beach, Jules immediately starts building while her sister goes off with a boogie board. Jules toils away, and as the tide rolls in, the Ocean demolishes her creation. While Jules takes the Ocean’s destruction personally, her sister says, “this happens to everyone” before heading back out to the waves. Jules is discouraged as she sees other kids’ impressive, still-standing sand castles, but she persists only to be thwarted again by the Ocean. Her lowest point comes when the tides sweep away her bucket. Big sister comes to the rescue—not to save it but to help build another castle, using only their hands. It’s “definitely the BIGGEST…FANCIEST…MOST EXCELLENT” castle, but then, “Uh-oh.” A massive, spread-spanning CRASH! both obliterates the castle and leaves Jules and her sister exhilarated, and they race back to tell their mom what’s happened. In a twist that feels lifted from a Bob Graham story, “Mom assures them that happens to everyone.” Sima’s big-nosed cartoons are also reminiscent of Graham’s, in both the character-developing details (Jules’ ears stick out through her bobbed haircut endearingly) and their obvious affection for one another.
A sweet sisterhood seaside story. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-4168-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Superheroes, and readers, will live happily-ever-after.
Why have fairy tales lasted so long? Maybe it’s because they change with every teller.
It takes surprisingly little effort to turn the Three Little Pigs into superheroes. The Big Bad Wolf basically started out as a supervillain, with the ability to blow a house down, and the pigs had to perform spectacular feats to outwit him. In this picture book, the wolf, locked in the Happily Never After tower, devises a plot to escape. Using rotten eggs and spicy ginger, he creates the Gingerbread Man, who makes his way to a baking contest where the three pigs and other fairy-tale characters are competing to win the key to the city. The Gingerbread Man grabs the key, and not even superhero pigs are fast enough to catch him, but with their secret weapon—mustard (which one of the pigs also uses to bake cookies)—they save the day. The morals: Evil never triumphs, and mustard cookies are delicious. The book’s charm is in the details. There are splotches of mustard on the cookies featured on the endpapers, and a sly-looking mouse is hiding on many of the pages. The story even manages to include more than a dozen fairy-tale figures without seeming frenzied. Evans’ use of shading is so skillful that it almost seems possible to reach out and touch the characters. Most of the human characters are light-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Superheroes, and readers, will live happily-ever-after. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-68221-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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